All posts tagged: Tim Hetherington Trust

“I’m just a straight up, ‘shit-kicker’ kid from Texas,” says Dominic Bracco. “I wore cowboy boots every day of my life until I was 20. I was that kid.” Bracco, 29, a photojournalist now based in Mexico City, knew that he wanted to pursue photography from a young age. He grew up in Chapman Ranch, near to the Mexican border. As he neared adulthood, he became acutely aware of the deep-rooted issues of migration, drugs and cultural divides of the region. His mother was a children’s social worker; his great uncle, a human trafficker. When he was still a teenager, he was inspired by photography series that documented the lives of two lovers addicted to drugs. Yet, even then, Bracco was already tapping into a humanistic perception of documentary photography that would come to define his style and approach. “What resonated with me was that it wasn’t just about them being heroin addicts,” says Bracco of the lovers. “It was about them and how much they loved each other. Drugs have a very charged feel next to the border. …

Dutch-American filmmaking team Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill have been named as the first winners of the new Tim Hetherington Visionary Award. The duo saw off 64 other nominated artists to win the £20,000 prize, which was set up by the Tim Hetherington Trust in 2014, in memory of the celebrated British photojournalist who was killed covering the civil war in Libya in 2011. “We’re still processing the news,” says O’Neill on Skype from California where the couple lives. “It’s something we regard as much a responsibility as an honour. We have such an immense amount of respect for anything done in Tim’s name, [which] carries a resonance, and has to be respected… this is a certificate of validation for us.” Speaking exclusively to BJP before the announcement, Stephen Mayes, executive director of the Trust said: “The true essence of Tim was about moving forwards, innovation, and trying to solve the ‘media puzzle’ – how do we use the media in a way that is really effective? By setting up the award in Tim’s name, we …